Former Minister of Finance, Chief Olu Falae, has said that despite the N100 million naira he collected from People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Tony Anenih which has now been traced to the missing $2.1 billion arms procurement funds, nothing has eroded his integrity as a patriotic Nigerian.
Falae told newsmen on Saturday that the N100m he collected from Anenih, was fully remitted to his party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and not diverted into his private pocket.
He however admitted that the money was given to him as a reward for his party’s agreement to support the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“The PDP’s Board of Trustees’ chairman came to me in Akure to seek our support. We gave him six conditions; that they should have zero tolerance for corruption, create job for the unemployed, fight insurgency and restore security in Nigeria, reduce recurrent expenditure to have money for capital development, etc; that if they (PDP) accept those conditions, we would support them.”
He said the PDP agreed to the terms in principle and the two parties had a gentleman agreement to work together.
Falae explained that he later wrote to Anenih, who wrote back to accept the conditions. “That was the basis for our cooperation to support their presidential candidate; that was the purpose for which the money was given,” he said.
The former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, noted that both SDP and the PDP did not discuss money during the negotiation, while the conditions given were in the best interest of the country.
He continued: “They realised that the SDP had no money; we had no government (post). He (Anenih) said without money, we would not be able to be effective. So, he sent us the money, which I passed on to the SDP and it was distributed to all the states (chapters) of the federation, while our people were instructed to campaign for their presidential candidate during the election. This was the story.”
When Falae was asked to confirm his alleged failure to remit all the money to the party, he said, “It is a lie. I am the chief fundraiser for the party and the money I (have) raised and remitted to the party is well over N200m.”
He pointed out that the party has its own bank account where money passes, while there were other executives of the party who knew about its finances.
“My integrity cannot be impugned by unserious people. They wanted to drag us into Dasukigate; they couldn’t do that. The money we got was remitted to the party for the election,” he said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating the $2.1 billion given to former National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd) to procure arms for Nigerian soldiers fighting insurgents in the northeast but which was allegedly diverted into campaign funds for the PDP.
Anenih had earlier confirmed receiving N260m from Dasuki, part of which he gave elder statesmen, Alh Tanko Yakassai N63 million and N100 million to Falae.
